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I kind of consider myself an expert on this topic, particularly given the battles of THREE toddlers at once trying to scale the tree. We are now onto our fifth toddler trying to tear down the tree and constantly unplug it. I hadn’t put most of my tricks in place and was wondering why I was losing my ever-loving mind!
Must Have #1
Swivel Base Christmas Tree Stand – I bought this YEARS before we had kids. I was sick of fighting with a cheap tree stand that would fall over, leak water, and never keep the tree straight without spending HOURS underneath it tightening and loosening screws. This thing is FANTASTIC! It literally takes me about 5 minutes to get the tree in the stand, in the house, and straight. I have never had to anchor a tree to a wall with this thing….the tree can be at a 60* and still not come crashing down (I may be exaggerating, just a touch, at that last one.)
This is how cock-eyed the bottom of our tree was this year….
You wouldn’t know it to look at the tree, other than my teetering star that still needs to be secured.
Must Have #2
On Off Ornament Switch – I think I splurged on this when Avelyn was a toddler. There are a bunch of different kinds if you look on Amazon, I think we paid about $25 for our’s, but it has been well worth it. I’m able to tuck the plugs behind furniture that little ones can’t get to and still be able to easily turn the tree on and off. It’s a very simple thing, similar to the “touch” lights of old; you just plug your light string into the box that attaches via a wire to the ornament, and that gets plugged in the wall.
Peter was driving me up the wall (our ornament needed to be rewired…not a big deal, but I hadn’t put it on yet). He was constantly plugging and unplugging the tree. No amounts of no or anything else helped. I finally just had it and had to take the 5 minutes to fix the wire on the end of the box and move the plug back to the outlet behind the dresser. Problem solved. He hasn’t touched the lights since.
Must Have #3
Baby Jail – We had bought one of these for Avelyn to have a place to play when we had our store, but quickly remembered it when we had the triplets at 11 months and needed to protect the tree. You can make the corral as big or as small as needed. The nice thing is the sides are very rigid and the thing is not easy to move: It was a much needed wall of NO around our Christmas tree.
Must Have #4
A Sense of Humor – As with anything with children, a sense of humor and LOTS of GRACE seem to take the edge off of things. A healthy dose of lowering your expectations works wonders too. We’ve had our share of mishaps, but for the most part have avoided any major Christmas-Catastrophes. It has also helped that there have been years that the tree gets lights and beads and that’s it, mostly because I just wasn’t up to the effort of full out decorating Christmas trees (ie. I was pregnant with the triplets and with Peter).
The most important thing to remember is that Christmas is a magical season, not just for children, but for adults too. No one wants to spend every waking minute of it saying or being told NO (and other, more PC, alternatives).